Friday, 16 May 2014

The 2014 Montpeyroux fete

I always enjoy the annual Montpeyroux fete. It's a great opportunity to catch up with old
friends and also to see what is new. This
year it was held on Easter Sunday. After
a brilliantly sunny warm week, the weather broke overnight and we awoke to a
cold wind and rain, but undeterred, I donned my new waterproof jacket and set
off to Montpeyroux. This year there were twenty-two wine growers, just
from this one small village.

The newest, Mas de la
Fée Nomène, comprises just 90
ares. Nany
Taverna is a true garagiste, operating out of her garage on the edge of the
village and she made just 3000 bottles
for her first vintage in 2012. Her wine
is a blend of Carignan, Syrah and Grenache, pressed with a small basket press
and aged in a stainless steel vat. It
has some lovely fresh fruit on the nose and on the palate, a firm tannic
streak, with ripe, youthful fruit and a fresh finish. A lovely debut, and for 12€ a bottle.

Another new estate, for me was le Petit Domaine
with Aurélien Petit, except that I had encountered him a week earlier at the bio fair at Domaine de
la Tour, but it was sympa to renew the acquaintance. And in any case my tasting buddy, Lits, was
keen to try his wines. There's a great Chenin, with rich dry honey, given 24 hours of
skin contact and fermented and aged in wood until February. Aurélien makes just two barrels from 25 ares. It has lovely texture and satisfying mouth
feel. 18.00€

He makes his Syrah three different ways. There is a long maceration lasting about
three weeks, a short five days maceration and some carbonic maceration, for
three weeks before pressing the grapes. Each
is given a separate élevage and then either
blended altogether to make a peppery wine with fresh fruit, 12.00€ or the different components are blended
with other varieties as Aurélien sees fit.

So 2013 Cyclops consists of Carignan, without
wood ageing and blended with the short maceration Syrah that has spent a couple
of months in oak. It is rounded and
ripe, with that appealing touch of rusticity that you get from Carignan, combined
with a firm streak of tannin. 12.00€

2012 Rhapsody is mainly Carignan, made by
carbonic maceration, with a little of the carbonic maceration Syrah. It was not as satisfying as Cyclops,
especially at nearly twice the price. 21.00€.

And we finished with Titan, Syrah with a little Carignan,
given 12 months ageing in oak, with solid red fruit and a firm structured
palate, requiring some bottle age. 24.00€

I renewed my acquaintance with Pascal Dalier
from Domaine Joncas. His white wine from
Grenache Gris, made in concrete eggs, is rich and satisfying, with white
blossom and fresh fruit. 18.00€. There are just 492 bottles

Then Pascal proffered a mystery wine. What do you think this? I was stumped. It was very intriguing; there were herbal
notes, and a slight bitterness on the finish, but some good acidity. The answer was Riesling, which you certainly
do not expect to find in the Languedoc.

2012 Joia is a blend of 65% Grenache and 35%
Syrah, with fresh fruit and some leathery notes, a nice balance of fruit and
tannin and an elegant finish. And we finished
with Nebla, a blend of Syrah, Grenache and Mourvèdre, with fresh red fruit and firm leathery notes, and more depth
than Joia. Pascal now has 8.5 hectares, and a new cellar
that I have yet to visit.

Jo Lynch and André Suquet's
wines from Villa Dondona were drinking / tasting very well that day. The white Esperel was fresh and leafy; pink
Esquisse was delicate and herbal, 2012 Carignan was quite perfumed with a
tannic streak; 2012 Villa Dondona was youthful and tight knit, with good fruit,
but needing some bottle ageing, and 2011 Oppidum was rounded and oaky with a youthful
gutsy finish.

Then Jo sent us off to see her oenologist, Jean
Natoli, who is not yet officially Montpeyroux and I am not really meant to
write about him in the context of the fete, as he wasn't supposed to be there,
so I will save him for a cellar visit - he makes his own wine at Mas des Quernes,
as well as running a very efficient oenology cabinet.

Amélie d'Hurlaborde was offering a treat, all three vintages of her old
Carignan. 2012 is solid and rounded,
quite dense and textured, with ripe fruit and soyeux tannins making for a rounded
mouthful of flavour.

2011 has great depth with smoky fruit; it was
dense and ripe and like the 2012 will repay bottle ageing. And 2010, her very first vintage has firm fruit
with an elegant balance of tannin and a fine finish. And she has her very first vintage of
Montpeyroux, from Syrah, Grenache and Carignan, in vat. I can't wait to taste it.

Other delights included Alain Chabanon's Campredon,
and 2010 Trélans with some elegant dry honeyed Chenin.

Christine Commeyras from Domaine l'Aiguelière was showing older vintages of Côte
Dorée and Côte Rousse, 2009, 2008 and 2006 with my good friend Bernard Bardou
helping her on her stand. I've always
found these wines quite heavy and solid, but Bernard's enthusiasm was quite
catching, so I was prepared to give them a fresh look. They certainly taste younger than the vintages
might indicate, with some intense use of oak and notes of black fruit and firm
tannins.

We briefly checked out Clos d'Aven. Their first vintage was 2005 and they have
just 1.5 hectares. Le Petit Clos is ripe
and rounded with dense fruit while 2009 le Clos d'Aven was dry and leathery and
2010 Balzac Noir had ripe vanilla fruit with a firm tannic streak and an
intense finish. I liked le Petit Clos
best.

Le Mas de Bertrand was another new name, to me, and
is associated with Domaine de la
Malavieille. A general favourable
impression but by this time my notes are getting a little illegible –There is an intriguing white wine, a Vin de France, a blend of Chenin blanc and Petit
Manseng,that is more commonly found in Jurancon, which had some dry honey with
balancing acidity. 9.80€.

Cuvée Louise is a Carignan
blanc, with a touch of honey and firm acidity, with an élevage in concrete eggs. The rosé, a
blend of seven different varieties Syrah, Grenache, Cinsaut, Carignan, Cabernet
Sauvignon, Mourvèdre and Portan (a
cross of Grenache Noir and Blauer Portugieser) is rounded with some ripe strawberry fruit.

Le 5 is a
blend of Syrah, Grenache and Mourvèdre with some rounded fruit and a firm, but harmonious streak of
tannin. A nice Montpeyroux.

And we briefly dived into Sylvain Fadat's cellar
where he was offering older vintages By
this time, we were beginning to suffer from palate fatigue, but nonetheless we
still managed to appreciate 2006 Cocalières blanc which was herbal with resinous
notes and very intriguing. 2004 Montpeyroux
was firm and leathery and 2003 l'Authentique a blend of Mourvèdre and Carignan was firm and intense, with
the weight of that warm vintage.

There were other estates that I did taste that
were not showing so well on the day. Domaine
de Grécaux was not very expressive.
I’ve liked Ivo Ferreira’s wines from Domaine l’Escarpolette on previous occasions, but on Easter
Sunday they just didn’t sing. Domaine de Clementine, I didn’t know and don’t feel inclined to know better.
And I expected better from Christopher Johnson Gilbert’s Domaine Cinq Vents. His first vintage of red, 2010 was very oaky
for my taste, and the 2012 rosé was a bit stalky.

And then it was time for some restorative barbecued
saucisse with aligot. We sat in the
market square, trying to keep dry, and warm.
A bare chested man was bravely be sporting himself as Bacchus and there
were other musical antics for our entertainment. And then it was time to go home, and warm
up!

3 comments:

Interesting notes as ever Rosemary. Definitely an event to which I am looking forward next year.What tips can you offer for such long tastings in order to to be able to taste so many wines fairly? Do you have a strategy eg reds before whites? I know in this case you were travelling between producers? Was there a set order or just a case of who you reached first?

I am afraid that it is terribly unprofessional - a question of who you see first .... and not ideal conditions for tasting, but none the less it is a good way to make new discoveries - the same goes for the balades vigneronnes. And if it is hot, do take water with you. I find it difficult to go back to a producer, so tend to taste all their wines in one go, and tend to prefer white before red, but there is of course an argument for the other way round.

About Me

What qualifies me to write and comment on the Languedoc? Quite simply, I have been following its development for thirty years. I was one of the first women to pass the Master of Wine exams, back in 1979, and I became a freelance wine writer in 1981, since when I have written eleven books, covering not only the Languedoc, but also Chablis, Tuscany and New Zealand.

Why the Languedoc?

My very first visit to a wine cellar in the Languedoc was in 1979 and I have returned regularly since then, researching two books, firstly French Country Wines, and subsequently The Wines of the South of France, from Banyuls to Bellet. French Country Wines was published in 1990 and took me off the beaten track to many lost vineyards of France, but inevitably the Midi formed a large part of the book. In those days you sensed the beginnings of a revival in the fortunes of the region; some of the estates with a serious reputation today, were leading the way back in the 1980s, such as Gilbert Alquier in Faugères; Daniel Domergue in the Minervois; Domaine Cazes in Rivesaltes. Aimé Guibert had made his first vintage at Mas de Daumas Gassac in 1978 and set an unprecedented price expectation for a wine from the south of France. Alain Roux was making pace-setting wines at the Prieuré de St. Jean de Bébian. Other reputations have faded and many others were yet to be made. My visit to the Pic St. Loup focused on the cooperative at St. Mathieu de Tréviers, and on that cooperative alone. The leading names such as l’Hortus, Mas Bruguière, Mas de Mortiès, Clos Marie, or Domaine de Cazeneuve were as yet quite unknown. The same phenomenon applies to the village of Montpeyroux, whose wines were also represented by the village cooperative. At the time no one foresaw the enormous development that would take place in the 1990s.Nonetheless back then, the Languedoc intrigued me. On the last day of my last research trip for French Country Wines, back in October 1987, I had lunch in Narbonne with Claude Vialade, who was the export director for one of the big players of the region, les Vignerons Val d’Orbieu, an enormous marketing and export association of cooperatives and smaller wine producers. One of us said: there is a book to be written on the Languedoc. I mentally filed the idea and ten years on, and two or three books later, I embarked on The Wines of the South of France, which covered all the vineyards between the Spanish and Italian borders, including Provence as well as Languedoc Roussillon, and also the island of Corsica. The Wines of the South of France was published in 2001 and examines the vineyards of the Midi as they were on the eve of the millennium. I could write a second, comparable book, featuring only wine growers who have started making wine in this century. But these days it is impossible to keep abreast of the pace of change with the printed word; the region demands the immediacy of the web. Numerous research trips only served to fuel my enthusiasm for the wonderful region of the Languedoc. Holidays in gîtes between Perpignan and Draguignan, as well as snatched weekends in the middle of research trips, enabled my husband and I to decide on our favourite corner of the Languedoc. And in 2004 we bought a house within easy reach of the towns of Pézenas and Clermont l’Hérault, which gives me a wonderful base for visiting the local wine growers. Our village does not have a particular reputation for its wine, but many of the nearby villages do. We are in very easy reach of Faugères, St. Chinian, some of the highlights of the Coteaux du Languedoc and the new area of Pézenas, as well as the Vin de Pays des Côtes de Thongue, which is one of the more innovative of the numerous vins de pays of the region. So with this blog, I hope to keep abreast of some of the many new and exciting developments in the region

Introduction to the Languedoc

Why the Languedoc? Quite simply, it is without doubt the most exciting and innovative wine region of France. Everything is possible; the appellations may lay down ground rules, but the parallel vins de pays allow for unlimited experimentation, creating a host of new and exciting wines. Over the last twenty years or so this vast vineyard, which stretches from the Spanish border round to the delta of the Rhone has undergone a dramatic transformation, so that the wines have improved out of all recognition. And that pace of change continues unabated, with each vintage bringing new wine growers and new wines. Those are the wines and people I want to talk about, as well as old established favourites. And since wine goes with food, I do not intend to ignore the rich gastronomy of the region. And I also reserve the right occasionally to extend this blog beyond the confines of the Languedoc, into Provence and Corsica and maybe even further afield.